


Joie de Vivre

by MadMothMadame



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs a Hug, Found Family, Friendship, Gen Fic really, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Nile Freeman Needs a Hug, Road Trip, Travel as Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26079160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadMothMadame/pseuds/MadMothMadame
Summary: The road to recovery is much like the road to redemption in that it cannot be walked alone.Nile and Booker find themselves to be the unlikeliest of kindred spirits and decide to try and take that journey together.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 55
Kudos: 107





	Joie de Vivre

Booker had once loved the sea. It called to him like home.

Now, he wondered if that hadn’t been a sign. Six months into his exile and all of his roads had led to here. Feet on the rocky shore as the waves crashed. The English Channel was as vicious now as it had always been.

There was some comfort in that. Life was not cruel. It simply was.

Man, on the other hand...

His hands shook from the cold, rain lashed into his face and brought the chill with it that he could feel in his bones.

Another year. No progress.

The oceanography experts and early modern historians he had assembled and reassembled for over thirty years were a rotating door of the best in the world. From the foundation he’d based in Le Havre, with a joint team in London, they scoured records and the ocean floor in sync.

He couldn’t stop looking. The money was immaterial. Booker had been a futurist out of sheer practicality, an eye always looking ahead. Investments and stock markets were as easy to predict by now as the weather. It didn’t _matter_.

He would find her. Eventually. It was simply a matter of time.

Time. The one thing he would always have enough of.

Perhaps it was his penance? He was not Andromache, with her mission and clear sighted vision, for all that she stumbled in her faith sometimes. He was not Nicky and Joe, so clearly there to live for each other. No. He had no other role than this. A life searching for death to be free of phantoms that would never cease in haunting him. Perhaps it was no surprise he was so desperate to escape it.

He had always been a coward. Had he been braver, he would have tried harder for an honest life, faced the hunger and famine of turning down whatever work had come his way in the desperate times of their not-so-glorious revolution. He could have taken the brutal life of a felon, no doubt to be worked to death within the year. If he had, maybe death would have stuck.

A lifetime of a thousand apologies and mistakes had only led him here. To standing alone, on a shore of a sea that mocked him with the mysteries it kept. With its timelessness making his own seem a facsimile of eternity.

Perhaps he should just walk out and keep walking. Perhaps he could gain some reprieve from letting Quynh know that she didn’t suffer alone. Perhaps, just once, he might be able to rest.

But no.

If this was a penance, his life, both ancient and recent, had taught him nothing but the futility of the coward’s way out.

Better to drink.

His hand, shattering together, near numb, fought to pull out his flask.

The liquid burned down his throat, a warmth that never really reached, but it was as close as he could come.

He watched the sea rage and wished he had the strength to do the same.

Instead, here he would stay. Remembering. Wishing to waste away. Until the sun rose perhaps.

Or until his phone rang.

He couldn’t hear it for the wind, but the vibration in his shirt pocket, where he kept it close (close to his heart as it could get without digging into him), told him that someone, somewhere, was trying to reach him.

His current landlord perhaps? The researchers? At this hour, unlikely, but no more unlikely than anyone else.

“ _Oui allo?_ ” he answered.

“Booker?”

Nile wondered if this was suffocation.

Waking, drowning, in a house full of people and utterly alone.

Back home in Chicago, things were never quiet. They weren’t rich, didn’t have a white picket fence or anything, but they weren’t in the projects either. Either way though, the city was alive.

Same was true in the Marines. There was always someone around, something to do, a reason to stay awake. Someone to turn to.

Jen. Or maybe Dizzy, if she was in a good mood. People she could look at and lean on and know that they would catch her.

In a way, that was the harder loss. Sure, the idea of outliving her family filled her lungs with too much air, clenched her heart with a terror she didn’t know what to do with, but they had been a family of a kind. She hadn’t seen her _actual_ family in nearly a year, but her squad had been with her every day, in deepest dangers and darkest nights.

And they’d looked at her like she was a monster.

Still, she missed them every day. So much it tried to choke her.

Not that it mattered. She couldn’t die anyways. But telling that to her body, to her spiralling mind was like telling a drowning man to just breathe. It was too late. The panic had set in. _They were sinking_.

“Nile?”

Andy. The stalwart one. She made it look so easy.

“You okay, kid?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Nile wiped away the tear that fell angrily, not bothering to hide it. She knew Andy wouldn’t mention it. That would mean talking about feelings, something that Nile got the feeling Andy had never been good at.

Or maybe she had been. But she’d also built her world around a grand total of six other immortals and had lost three of them. The holes in this so-called family were near tangible things, and still, six months later, Nile couldn’t help but feel that there was no place for her here.

Not really. Not like there had been.

She felt eyes on her. Nicky and Joe, entangled together as always where they’d fallen asleep on the couch. She’d parked it in an armchair as soon as they’d got into this, another of a hundred safe houses, and passed out.

Just once, she’d like to sleep without hearing the choking screams and scratches of nails on iron.

“You sure?” Nicky asked quietly.

And maybe he was offering to listen. Maybe he was offering for all of them.

But she knew that there wasn’t really a way that any of them could understand.

Nicky and Joe. NickyAndJoe. Might as well be one word. One thing. Never alone. Andy, who feared being alone and losing people so much that she would go years without contact. Nile knew. Joe had told her. Laughed about it.

“We all need a break sometime. Nicky and I are planning a trip to Malta,” he’d said with a wink to his love.

The smile they’d shared made it clear she wasn’t invited.

So, what would she do?

Nothing? Wait for them.

Be alone?

And maybe it was unfair. Maybe they planned to give her a decade to adjust. Maybe longer. Maybe they would stay with Andy until her newly started clock ticked down to nothing. Maybe they’d stay with her too.

Or maybe they’d leave her alone for a hundred years.

Again. Maybe unfair. Maybe she’d feel better in the morning, but right now, she just wanted to be angry for a minute. It was so _hard_ to be angry at them when they were here and clearly trying, but they also so clearly had no idea what they were doing.

They’d been existing this way for forever. They didn’t know how to be anything else. How to shift enough to make room.

God, she was _struggling_ tonight.

She grabbed her coat as she stood.

“I’m going out.”

Nicky looked at Joe over his shoulder, shared a glance full of that language only they spoke, and both went to rise.

“We’ll come with you,” Joe said.

“No,” she snapped, meaner than she meant to, so she tried again, softer this time, “No, it’s late. It’s just the nightmares again. I’ll be fine. I just need some air.”

Joe looked infuriatingly to Nicky, who looked to her and nodded.

“Take a gun,” was all Andy said, and went back to cleaning the arsenal stretched out on the table in front of her.

Right.

The sun had set and turned the sky violet, fading to black with the lights of the city turned the street a gritty yellow and neon. Leaves and trash lined it, so much narrower here in Hungary than they were in the States. The looming buildings felt like eavesdroppers. As if she needed any more witnesses.

She didn’t care if it was stupid. Or putting her guard down. She put on her fucking headphones and let familiar notes and songs try and sooth the ocean inside her.

It didn’t work.

Her knees jumped and bounced, her feet feeling far away, so she parked it on a curb.

She hadn’t even made it a block.

It didn’t matter.

Everytime she closed her eyes, she saw her mom blowing out her last birthday candles, her brother running away up the stairs after pulling her braids, afraid as he _should be_ , Dizzy’s face as she tried to hold Nile’s blood in her neck, as if her fingers could hold her friend together, watched it morph into fear and distrust, the eyes of her squad and the desire to _run_ they gave her. Danger. Quyhn. Death, darkness, drowning. Booker’s face as they _left_ him there.

The faces of the others. Andy. Joe. Nicky. Trying to convince her that they were family even as they left someone behind. Trying to convince her now that she wouldn’t be left standing on some distant shore just as easily.

Fuck.

She yanked the earbuds out of her ears.

And she knew she shouldn’t. Knew what the others thought they were doing, but she also knew that they didn’t _know_ what they were doing any more than she did.

Have as many millennia as you like. The future was still unknowable.

Her new burner phone was like all her others. It only had five numbers in it.

Booker’s was easy enough to find. Unless he’d changed it. Which, she wouldn’t blame him. She hoped he would answer though.

And then promptly didn’t know what to say when he did.

“ _Oui allo?_ ”

“Booker?”

There was a pause, but then, “Nile? Is that you?”

“Y-yeah it’s me.”

“Is everything okay? Did something happen?” he asked. She could barely hear him over what sounded like a storm of static.

“No, no. Everything’s fine. I just-”

He was silent on the other end and she knew he was waiting on her.

Waiting for her.

“I just, they don’t. I can’t explain.”

“Try,” he bid. Didn’t ask for anything else. Just that she try.

So, she tried. Tried to swallow passed the lump in her throat and the anxiety in her lungs. Tried to breathe and marshal her thoughts to _explain_ what about all of this was overwhelming beyond _everything_.

He waited. Somehow, she knew he would.

“It’s just. There’s no room for me here. Like, Nicky and Joe have each other, and Andy’s trying but sometimes that’s too much. She just wants me to get over it and accept this and I can’t. It’s been so long for her and them and it’s just,” she paused for a gasping breath, let it out, and ran a hand over her braids, “Hard.”

“I know,” Booker said, “Give it time.”

Nile croaked out a laugh, bitter.

“Yeah. Seems I have a lot of that.”

“That you do,” he agreed. And then waited, again, for her lead.

“It doesn’t help me now though,” she tried to explain.

“I know.”

He did. She knew that.

“That’s what I don’t get. Like, you-”

She cut herself off. Waiting to see if he would cut her off. But he didn’t.

So, she continued, “You’re new, like me. And it’s _hard_. It’s like they’ve forgotten.”

Booker made a thoughtful noise she could only barely hear. When he spoke again, he was slightly out of breath and she wondered where he was. If she and he were under the same stars, or if the sun beat down on him as mercilessly as it did on her in the Afghani desert.

“I do not believe that they have forgotten, necessarily,” he said. “Well, perhaps Andy has, but times were different when they changed. Nicky and Joe. Both of them had already left home with no real expectation of return. And then they found each other.”

“Yeah, that! It’s like, I don’t know. They can’t hear me.”

“They do hear you. But you must understand that you are as an infant in their eyes. And your concerns are thus infantile. They know that in a thousand years, you will look back on these moments as you do on your childhood. Faint, fond, and forgotten.”

Nile couldn’t help it. She buried her face in her knees and tried not to cry.

“It’s just hard.”

“It is.”

“Does it get easier?” she asked, maybe pleading just a bit.

Booker was silent on the other end of the line for a long, disheartening time. She knew his answer before he gave it.

“Not for me.”

A quiet tear leaked from her eye into the denim of her bluejeans and even with him on the other end of the line and the others barely a block away, she still felt alone.

“But,” he said, firm and sure, “You are young. And you are brave. And resilient. Much more so than me. You need not see yourself in my future. That is no way to live.”

Finally, finally, Nile felt like she could break down and cry. Great, heaving sobs wracked her body and she let herself have this one moment to grieve.

Grieve for the family she’d lost. The friends. The one’s she’d gained, all already broken, but fitting together, not quite knowing how to carve out a space for her. The enormity of an eternity stretching before her, one she wasn’t sure she could shoulder.

It was so much. The others bore it so effortlessly, but here, with Booker on the other end, who’s grief was apparent even when she was a stranger, it felt like she had permission to be sad about it in a way that the others weren’t.

They were excited to have her. Excited for more family. She just wanted the one she’d left behind.

Knowing that _someone_ had felt the same way made it feel almost comically easier to breathe and let the tears come.

It felt like it took an age for them to subside, but this time when they did, for the first time since she’d turned into whatever the hell they were, she didn’t feel like they were still waiting just under her skin.

She wiped her wet cheek, sopped up the disgusting snot and tears on the sleeve of her jacket and didn’t care.

“Booker?” she asked.

“I’m still here.”

She knew. She did, and it felt stable, the way that the static in the background of his call had quieted, and she could hear him breathing on the other end of the line now. Quiet. Measured. And reassuring just for his presence.

“Can I,” she paused, hesitated, wasn’t sure how to ask this of him, but she _wanted_ to. “Can I come visit you?”

His pause was longer than hers, and heavier.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Nile.”

“But-”

“No. Listen. Don’t make the mistake I made. Hold onto them.”

“I don’t want to. They don’t-” she took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of herself. “They don’t understand. You do.”

“They would understand if you talked to them.”

“Booker,” she started. Paused. Tried to wrangle her words into what she actually needed to say. “I don’t think I can. They really, really don’t. I. I feel better after this conversation than I have after the last six months.”

“Nile…”

He didn’t sound sure. She hated that she knew why.

“No. Listen. It wasn’t fair-”

But it wasn’t about him, not really, so she stopped that line of thought.

Too late though. He seized on it anyways.

“I made my choices, Nile. You should abide by the decision of the group.”

“I don’t care. They were wrong anyways.”

“ _I_ was wrong,” he tried to say, but she just talked over him.

“But even if they weren’t. They’re not the boss of me. I-”

Her words felt like they were tied up in her through, her thoughts still a scrambled mess, but it was okay. He waited. Which told her that she was making the right choice.

“I can’t be here anymore. I just need some time. Please, Booker.”

She could swear she could hear him think it over, chew on it, decide if it was worth it. Because maybe the others wouldn’t take it well, might take it out on him. Nile didn’t think they would, but Booker was facing a century alone. She wasn’t sure she’d be brave enough to maybe add to it either.

But eventually, finally, he said, “You are always welcome, Nile.”

The breath that left her was part a sigh, part a sob, and a hundred percent relief. The weight off her shoulders loosened the stone in her stomach and the bands around her lungs and had her feeling a bit like she was floating away.

“Thanks, Booker,” she said with a bit of a laugh she couldn’t hold back.

He didn’t say anything, but again, she knew he was still there.

She stood, and began to walk back.

“Where even are you?” she asked, realizing she had no idea.

“Le Havre,” he answered.

“Where?”

This time, she could hear the smile in his voice. “Normandy.”

“Oh, okay. Got it. I’ll, uh, get a train or something,” she said.

“You could fly,” he suggested, but it made her audibly shutter.

“No thanks,” she said. One near plane crash was enough. It would be a while before she got on another one if she had any say about it.

“Hm,” Booker agreed, amused, but said, “If you send me the itinerary, I’ll meet you at the station.”

She was nearly back at the flat.

“That sounds great, Booker. Thanks.”

“Of course,” he said, but then it was again his turn to hesitate, before he picked through his next words carefully. “If you end up not coming, please find a way to let me know if you can?”

“I’m coming,” she said firmly. She knew what he wasn’t saying. “I’ll handle them.”

His laugh was half-hearted, but she would take it.

“I believe you will. Good luck, though.”

“Thanks,” she said, though she didn’t need it. “See you soon.”

The long pause made her stop with her hand on the doorknob.

“Yeah,” he said finally, quietly. “See you soon.”

He sounded so uncertain that it made her spine straighten. She may have lost the last fight about him, but she wasn’t going to lose this one.

She hung up.

Back inside the safe house, she didn’t look at the others as they all looked up at her. Instead, she went straight to her laptop, picked it up, and began booking a ticket for the first train to France.

“Nile?” Andy asked, wary, “What are you doing?”

“I’m booking a train ticket.”

She could feel another one of the silent conversations she wasn’t able to read fly over her head and didn’t bother looking up.

“To where?” Andy asked.

“France. To see Booker.”

This time, she could read the silence.

“What?” Joe said, but Nicky quieted him with a, “Joe, wait,”

“Why?” Andy asked.

“Because I’m going visit him for a while.”

Again, as she actually expected, Joe was the first to try and protest, but he subsided as Nicky sat up, swung his legs down to sit up properly and face her. Andy put down the gun she was cleaning.

“We said a hundred years,” Andy said, like Nile needed reminding.

“No, _you_ said a hundred years. I said an apology.”

“We’ve been over this,” Andy tried again, sounding like the mother she _wasn’t_ and Nile was pretty sick of everyone treating her like a kid.

“No, listen. I get it, you guys are pissed. And guess what? You get to be,” she said firmly, but not pausing at all in her pounding in of the credit card number she had memorized by now. “But I also get to do what’s best for me. And let’s all face it. That isn’t _this_. Not now. Not yet.”

She knew as she said it that the words would hurt them. That it was hard, because they were trying best they could to be what she needed. But they just weren’t. And pretending wasn’t getting them anywhere.

“I just need some time to adjust. It used to take you guys years to find the new ones. I, I might need that year. And Booker is-”

“ _A cowardly trai-_ ” Nile spoke enough Arabic to know what Joe was muttering, but she also spoke enough JoeAndNicky-ese to read how effectively the look Nicky sent him said _shut up_.

And Joe did. Looked back to Nile, wide-eyed, and saw what Nicky saw. That she was serious. Toddering, breaking, and maybe more aware of what she needed than _any_ of them.

He sighed and flopped back down on the couch. Gave in.

One down.

“You sure this is what you want?” Nicky asked, sincere as he always was and she kind of loved him for it at this moment.

“Yes.”

He nodded.

Two down.

One left, and she was maybe a little more nervous about Andy. She felt at almost even footing with the others, but Andromache was the clear leader. The boss.

But she was smiling when Nile looked up at her. Stood, stalked over as deadly as anything that walked the earth, bent over, and gave her a fierce and warm hug.

“We’ll be here when you get back,” Andy promised.

Nile knew that. She still clung to the hug for longer than maybe she should have, because-

It didn’t have to be a fight. They really did just all want to help. It made it better and worse.

Less than twelve hours later, she was hugging all of them goodbye.

“How are you meeting up with him?” Andy asked as Nile shifted the straps of her bag, always concerned for the logistics.

“He’s meeting me on station.”

The others shared a look that Nile didn’t necessarily understand, but also didn’t really like. Especially, as Andy then said, “Let me know if he doesn’t?”

And Nile thought about saying something sharp, or just letting it go, but instead she huffed, and rolled her eyes.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got this.”

Again. They all looked at each other, and she just _knew_. The doubt was palpable.

“You guys do know I made it twenty years without you all hovering, right?”

They didn’t even have the decency to pretend to take that as a valid point.

“Okay,” she said, dragging out the vowels. “I’m gonna go now.”

Andy cleared her throat, “Okay. Right. Copley will be keeping an eye on you guys but if you need anything-”

“I know. I have your numbers.”

They let her go. Nile found her seat, put in her headphones, and let the Hungarian countryside pass her by.

Austrian.

German.

Finally French.

Sometimes, she slept. Mostly, she didn’t. Last thing she wanted was to wake up drowning on a train full of people. It was a long trip, but she let it wash over her.

She wondered if she would get better at this. If time would feel more fleeting the longer she lived. She supposed she’d find out. For now, she kept her eyes up, checking the other passengers for suspicions that weren’t founded, and staring out the window.

In the last year, she’d been to over a dozen countries. Before that, she’d never left Chicago. It was still all a bit overwhelming.

So too was Paris. She had to change trains twice, and didn’t speak a word of French, but luckily she never got lost enough to need help.

Oddly, it was only on the last, two-hour train north to the sea that she began to feel nervous.

She’d only known Booker really for less than a week, but it wasn’t just that. She wasn’t nervous about who he was. She knew that by now. He didn’t even try to hide it.

More, she was worried that he couldn’t help. That she couldn’t help. What if all of this was just a slow descent into self-destruction that was inevitable even after seventeen hours spent running from it to here? Obviously, it was too late to worry about it. And even if she did, it wouldn’t help anything, wouldn’t stop it from happening.

But anxiety and fear are never rational. So, her leg bounced, and she played her music too loud, and didn’t care if the other passengers stared while she took a deep breath in, and then out, then in, then out.

It would be okay. One way or another.

But seeing Booker, in his beanie and dark jacket, looking scruffy and nervous as she felt, waiting for her, she finally started to believe it.

The hug Nile gave him when she came off the train was easily one of the best Booker had ever received. It had been over half-a-year since he’d had one of any kind, but Nile’s was heartfelt enough that it dwarfed even that.

He didn’t say anything about how haggard she looked. It was not a good sign, for an immortal. Instead, he kissed her cheeks, and used the motion to slide her go-bag off her arm and swing it over his.

“Come. It’s not a long walk, but you must be tired.”

“Yeah, a bit,” she answered, not bothering to lie.

Travel was exhausting no matter what age. He led her out of the station with an arm over her shoulder. Once outside, he opened the umbrella he’d brought against the rain, and set an easy pace through the city.

Nile walked along beside him. She was noticeably flagging, but if he remembered correctly, she hadn’t been particularly verbose when last they’d met. Perhaps, she just didn’t have anything to say.

That made two of them. He still wasn’t sure why she was here.

He just knew, looking at her, that she was as lost as he was. It wasn’t reassuring, only sad.

The flat he was staying in was an old one, tucked up on the top floor of a tall building with some kind of second-hand store on the bottom floor. Unlocking the narrow door, he pushed his way in and they climbed up the five sets of creaking stairs to the landing, and another locked door.

The other side was rather equally unimpressive. Furniture from half a century ago, a television that only barely worked, but there was a kitchenette, and a bathroom with a rusting clawfoot tub and shower. Practically the height of luxury.

But the couch was comfortable, and the bedroom was serviceable, if tiny and cramped. It fit a bed, a wardrobe and a bedside table. Good enough for two immortals, but still.

“It’s not much,” he said.

Nile shrugged.

“Better than the barracks. Or the ground.”

Yes, that part of the army he doubted had changed much.

“Bedroom is yours. I prefer the couch,” he told her. He’d hidden the small collection of bottles that had surrounded it, marking the truth of that fact, before he’d left to pick her up, hours before he needed to just to be sure he was on time. That there was someone waiting for her.

He handed her back her bag.

“Hot water works a little too well, so be careful,” he said, and headed to the kitchenette. The fridge was tiny, but he'd stocked it with enough to put something together for dinner.

“Great,” Nile said. “I'm going to shower then.”

He nodded, but didn’t look up. Waited until he heard the door close and the shower start up to stop chopping the carrots he’d pulled out and instead brace himself against the linoleum counter, knife still clenched in one hand. Took several bracing breaths. All he wanted was a drink.

He really wasn’t expecting this to be hard. That everything from the wait on the platform for her to arrive, to walk together, to having her here in the same space as him would be this difficult after being alone.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t been left by the others for longer than this before. It had only been six months.

It didn’t feel near long enough after what he’d done. Turns out, immortality had somewhat robbed him of his fear of consequences. Now that they were upon him, they were as brutal as ever, all the more so when he thought he could confidently say they were deserved.

He didn’t think that when she left him again it would be any easier than before. Perhaps even harder still, for the reprieve.

Temporary. The thing he wanted dangled in front of his face.

Nile didn’t know any of that. All she knew was that she needed a minute away. Away, but not alone. If there was anything Booker understood, it was that.

She was here because she needed someone, and she had nowhere else to go.

Joe had called him selfish. Maybe he was.

But this was something he thought he knew how to give, no matter what it meant for himself.

The shower was kind of awful. Water didn’t feel the same when she woke up drowning all the time now. But the heat was nice she supposed. So were the pajamas she changed into. Her phone said it was just after eight. She could go somewhere, try and get Booker to show her the town. She could usually convince Nicky and Joe to at least take her around a bit. Travel might have lost its joy for them somewhat, but a year ago, Nile could never imagine having an evening to spend in France.

But it was raining. And she was tired. And she just wanted to sleep.

Besides, Booker wasn’t Nicky and Joe or Andy. She had no idea what he’d want to do, but she couldn’t imagine, from the moments they’d spent together, that he would be the type to turn down a night at home.

It wasn’t quiet when she left the bathroom. The tiny tv in the corner was playing a soccer game through tinny speakers, and there was quiet music coming from Booker’s phone on the kitchenette counter.

Booker was standing in the kitchen, chopping away at what looked like eggplant and suddenly Nile missed her mom’s home-cooking.

So much.

She tried to not let it show on her face as Booker smiled that fractured grin of his at her.

“I hope you’re not picky. I’m not much of a cook,” he said.

“Nah, whatever’s fine,” Nile hesitated for a minute, knowing the looks the others would send her and each other, wary and worried, but she wanted to tell someone. That’s why she came all this way, after all. To see if Booker could, well, listen, “My mama says that whoever cooks gets to decide on what’s being served and everyone else gets to be quiet and eat it.”

She watched carefully, but Booker didn’t do anything but send her that same grin again and say, “She sounds like quite the woman.”

Nile couldn’t help it, but the breath she’d been holding for six months, since Andy told her just how in the past her past life had to be, felt like it came out with her grateful exhale.

“Yeah. She is.”

It made Nile want to cry for the simple truth of it.

“My wife was the same,” Booker said, quiet and just a little tight.

Nile looked up at him, surprised, but he wasn’t looking at her, focused on the vegetables he was cutting.

Beyond Andy telling her that she didn’t even remember what her family had looked like, she didn’t speak of her family before. Nicky and Joe had never mentioned theirs either. Maybe they didn’t even remember them. And that was terrifying. But Booker still did, obviously.

“Really?” she asked, not sure if she was ready to share more herself, but curious all the same.

He nodded, and cleared his throat..

“The kitchen was her domain. I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with my paltry efforts.”

It was surprisingly neat, the way he’d closed the subject before it compelled her to share more of her own pain.

At loose ends, she went over to the table to take a seat, but the papers piled on it around Booker’s familiar laptop. Maps, topographical that didn’t make any sense as she looked at them, despite picking them up and turning them this way and that.

Glancing at Booker, still occupied with the food he was preparing, she kept quietly snooping, looking through the literal pages of maps, shipping manifests with lists of goods and names that didn’t sound right, all transcribed from attached pictures of the originals. Old originals. Like, really old. The kind she’d only seen in powerpoints in history class. Ocean current readings and weather patterns.

Xs on the maps. Thousands of them. Whole swathes bathed in the slightly darker grey than the rest. The key said those areas had been ‘searched.’

“You,” Nile began, as the pieces started snapping into place in her mind. It got Booker’s attention. “You’re looking for Quynh.”

“Of course,” Booker replied, only holding her eye for a moment, before apparently dismissing it as unimportant and going back to cooking.

Nile didn’t really know what to think. How to feel.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because somebody should be,” came his answer, simple and true.

Nile looked down at the mountain of work before her and somehow knew that this wasn’t new, that it would have taken years, maybe decades, to search that much of the sea floor. She also knew from the maps just how much more they had to search. The entire sea.

An impossibility.

“The others looked,” Nile said, fighting not to crumple the papers in her hands as she spoke. “They said they looked for a hundred years, said they’ve given up.”

Finally, Booker had finished with the vegetables, was seasoning them as he said, “We all do what we have to do to protect ourselves. For them, it was necessary to give up.”

“But not for you?”

Booker put the food in the oven, set a timer before he turned to face her, leaning back on the counter, arms crossed uncomfortably.

“Hard to give her up when she haunts our dreams,” he said with a shrug.

“Oh. Right. You never met her either.”

Booker nodded.

“Do the others know you’re doing this?”

“No,” Booker replied, “Like I said, we all do what we have to. They gave up on Quynh because they could no longer afford to grieve and not move on. It would be cruel to wave it in front of their faces, especially since I have no real expectation of success anytime soon.”

“So,” Nile said, dragging out the sound as she thought maybe she shouldn’t ask. But she had to know. “You’re not just doing this to get back into their good graces?”

“No,” Booker said flatly. “I founded and funded the research foundations over thirty years ago, after the Titanic was found. It seemed like a good place to start.”

“With the Titanic?”

He huffed a laugh. “No. With their methods and equipment and success. Made it seem…”

As he trailed off, Nile finished for him, “Possible?”

“Yes.”

Nile looked again at the maps, at the vast, near endless space that was yet to be searched.

“It doesn’t feel possible.”

Booker shrugged, but pushed off where he was leaning on the counter to come over to her. Reaching out for the pages she held, Booker asked, “May I?”

Nile nodded.

So, he showed her. Told her all that was being done, the archives he had people combing through page by page, the new technologies they’d developed, discoveries they’d made. The shipping manifests, archived back for years. With only the very fuzzy dates the others had given him, and a simple process of elimination therein, he had created a pretty amazing game-plan here.

“It is possible that the men who dropped her did so away from the regular shipping paths, so I have them looking at every ship that left that year, where it went, and how long it took to get there, and searching however far it could have gone off course and still make it to its destination in the time it took them. But we will search the entire ocean if we have too.”

Nile looked at it all with a bit of awe. He must have hundreds of people working on this.

“Unfortunately no,” he said when she asked. “The primary research team is just over two dozen people. But they’re the best in the world, and any more would muddy the waters, or so I’ve been told. They bring in others for grunt work as needed, but, as I said, I’m not an expert yet. Until I am, I will leave it to those that are.”

The timer dinged. He left her to pull out the food. She looked back down at all he’d shown her and suddenly felt a little guilty. She and the others had just been lying low, had only pulled a few small jobs, but mostly kept their time to themselves.

“I want to help,” Nile told him as he dished up the food.

He didn’t give any fight, just nodded and said, “If you’d like. I’ll have the researching team leads cc you on their updates from now on.”

Coming back over to the table, he gently began gathering the maps and rolling them up, putting everything back into their specified folders and setting them on the ground by the counter before pulling out silverware and glasses.

He actually set the table around her. The others never bothered really, but somehow seeing him do the regular chores she had grown up with helped somehow. Like, maybe it was okay to cling to normalcy just a little, in little things like setting the table.

So, she got up to help, asked where the salt and pepper were, the napkins, brought it all to the table while he cut some bread for them.

“I’m glad I came,” Nile said.

Booker’s lips twitched in a smile as he used his bread to mop his plate.

“I am too.”

“I want to go to the beach,” Nile said over breakfast the next day.

It was the first time since exile that Booker had a real reason to get up in the morning, had gone down to the boulangerie and got some croissants to slather with jam and enjoy with coffee. It was another dreary day, but the rain seemed to have mostly stopped.

“Alright,” he agreed.

“Alright?” Nile asked, and he looked up at her, not really understanding her questioning tone.

“Sure. Why not?”

It’s not like he had any other great plans, beyond maybe getting terribly drunk again and willing the day to pass. That seemed inappropriate, considering she had come all this way, but it wasn’t like life offered him many alternatives. Going out could be a pain, considering.

But, it wasn’t all that pleasant a day. The beachfront wouldn’t be too terribly crowded, little chance of being photographed there. Or if they were, it shouldn’t be too much trouble to erase it.

Besides. She wanted to go. That was enough.

“Okay.” Nile smiled.

“You’ll need a better coat though,” he said.

They went to a nearby shop and got her something waterproof and wind resistant, and even a beanie of her own. The rain may have stopped, but the winds had picked up and brought a bone-deep chill.

Then they walked. Le Havre wasn’t a particularly picturesque town, especially where France was concerned, having not escaped the rage of the Second World War. Allied bombings had nearly levelled the city, and though it had been rebuilt, it had been so for function rather than the grace of a past without carpet bombing.

But the beach was nice enough. Pebbled stones as opposed to white shored, they kept their shoes on as they strode along, listening to the waves, watching as the dark blue of them reached for the still bruised sky, keeping their hands leeching the meager warmth from the coffees they’d bought.

It was raining again, or rather misting. Perhaps it was just the sea, but it was bracing all the same.

Booker shifted uncomfortably, rolling his shoulders and the cup in his hands, trying to stop the numbness trying to set in.

Beside him, Nile stopped, eyes farther ahead down the coast to where some fools were actually trying to surf in this weather. In March. At least they were wearing wet suits for all the good it must have been doing them. Booker couldn’t imagine willingly parting from his jacket.

“Idiots,” he muttered.

Nile laughed a little, and kept walking.

“I always wanted to learn to surf,” she said as he took another sip of his coffee, relishing the false burn of the bourbon he’d added to it slipping down his throat.

He hummed through it, then asked after swallowing, “Why didn’t you?”

She shrugged.

“Never made it to the ocean before. Even if I did, we wouldn’t have had enough money for lessons or anything. It was kind of tight growing up.”

Nodding like he understood, Booker wondered if she knew what ‘tight’ had meant when he was her age, with a son already born and another on the way. If her mother had ever looked as his wife did when she realized it would be another day without dinner, that bread was worth more than gold and that soon the babies would scream all night for the hunger of it. Wondered if Nile had ever had to find out what it was to have nothing to offer a family that needed everything.

He hoped not.

“Is that why you joined the army?” he asked.

Nodding, Nile corrected, “Marines,” before continuing. “But yeah. It was the only way I was gonna afford college.”

That made sense, he supposed. It wasn’t even disheartening anymore how little the world had changed.

He remembered being young in the early days of the Revolution. They’d had such hopes, all of them, to build a better world. Even as a teenager, he’d felt that the future was limitless.

He knew better now.

“What about you?” Nile asked, but he’d rather lost track of the conversation.

“Sorry?” he asked.

“How did you end up fighting for Napoleon.”

Booker shrugged, “It was that or hang, I suppose. Or be worked to death in prison.”

She looked over, confused, and ah, the others hadn’t told her.

“I was a forger in my youth. A good one, though not good enough.”

He didn’t meet her eye, knowing the look he would find there would be one of judgement leaking in where it should have always been.

“But why?” she asked, confused.

Raising a hand, he rubbed at the back of his neck.

“We were starving. There was no work even for educated men, and even less food. I had a wife, and sons to support.”

So did thousands, millions of others, and they hadn’t resorted to a life of illegality. He knew then as he knew now that it wasn’t much of an excuse. But at the time, he hadn’t seen another choice.

“Yeah,” Nile said, surprising him out of his reverie. “I get that.”

His eyes slid over to her, but she wasn’t looking at him, looking ahead instead.

The judgement he’d expected to find there, had seen when Nico, Joseph, and Andrea had first met him and realized they hadn’t found a warrior this time, but a coward instead, was for once, blessedly, absent.

It didn’t feel like absolution, obviously, but perhaps it could grow into one someday.

They kept walking.

Booker was both better and worse the more he drank, Nile was discovering. Better, because the smiles came quicker and easier, just around the corner rather than needing to be pried out. But when he went silent, when he got into a funk and started to brood, well, it was darker than before.

He had a dash of whiskey with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Nile had caught him sipping out of a flask whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.

She wondered if it would help her. Couldn’t stop the thought from coming. Couldn’t help but wonder if it mattered one way or another.

So, when he went to pour a bottle of wine for dinner, she had him pour her some too.

She was still too young to drink in the States, but it hadn’t stopped her before. Would be stupid to let it stop her now that she would be stuck this age forever.

He didn’t comment, just poured her a glass.

The pasta shells stuffed with cheese and herbs in tomato sauce he’d pulled out of the freezer for dinner tasted just this edge of artificial in a way she had almost forgotten, but he’d added some spices or something that hid it better than Nile was used to. With the bread to sop it up with, it still tasted more like home than the legion of takeout, Joe’s too spicy tajine, or Nicky’s seafood stews.

Maybe those would taste like home too soon. Maybe they already did for Booker.

Nile looked across the table to where he was focused on the food before him, bent over it like it would run.

She went back to her own food.

The tv was on again, but neither of them were watching it, it was just a hum of blue in the corner that did nothing really to relieve the gloom of the day. It was kind of nice, the noise. It made it so she didn’t feel like she had to talk. Maybe that’s why Booker had turned it on.

After dinner, they still hadn’t really said anything, but he dried the plates and put them away after she’d washed them, a quiet ‘thank you’ when she had to get his attention sometimes to take the next one.

It was fine.

“Doin’ the dishes is thinking time,” her mama always said.

Nile had a lot to think about. She just wished all of it wasn’t about her family she’d left behind.

“Would you like to watch a movie or do something else?” Booker asked when they’d finished and he’d poured them both another glass.

“Do we have anything else to do?” Nile asked, just a little sarcastic.

Smiling a little, Booker said, “Nothing pressing, but I have books if you’d like to borrow one.”

She didn’t think she could focus on a book right then. “No, a movie sounds good.”

That decided, she took her wine and another bottle for later over to the couch and flopped down on it. Booker brought over his laptop and muted the television.

“Do you have a preference?” he asked her as he sat between the couch and the rickety coffee table he sat the laptop on.

She knew he could pirate anything, but also kind of knew that this was not a night for caring. She shook her head and took another drink.

“Dealer’s choice,” she answered, leaned back, and closed her eyes.

In hindsight, she probably should have mentioned that something from the last decade, or even the one before was preferable. Instead, the boom of a big band played too loud through his laptop speakers. An overture. Nile looked up at the convexted ceiling, water stained, with old crown molding. This building might have been nice once.

Like Booker? Like her?

If she had ever been asked, she wouldn’t have guessed that immortality would leave her feeling so diminished so quickly.

 _”With the coming of the Second World War,”_ an old fashioned narrator began. Nile looked back to the screen, saw a black and white globe turning, Booker taking a gulp of wine straight from the bottle, _“many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But, not everybody could get to Lisbon directly, and so a torturous, roundabout refugee trail sprang up.”_

Nile went ahead and just laid down, taking up the whole couch when it was clear Booker didn’t plan on moving to occupy it with her while the outdated narration continued.

 _“Paris to Marseilles,”_ the voice said, the image on the small screen showing bands of refugees, walking and too familiar, over the map of the lines they traveled, _“Across the Mediterranean to Oran, then by train or auto or foot across the rim of Africa to Casablanca, in French Morocco...”_

“Casablanca man? Are you for real?” she groused, as if she’d seen it before and not just heard of it once or twice.

It didn’t matter, because Booker just shushed her and took another drink.

She rolled her eyes and did the same.

_“... through money or influence or luck might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon, and from Lisbon, to the New World, but the others… wait in Casablanca. And wait. And wait. And wait...”_

Nile and Booker watched the movie.

Watched a city full of the desperate, stuck in one place.

_“Unfortunately, along with these unhappy refugees, the scum of Europe has gravitated to Casablanca. Some of them have been waiting years for a visa.”_

To a nightclub owner not ashamed to show how bitter the world had left him.

_“You’re right Ugarte. I am a little more impressed with you.”_

Even if he might still try to do the right thing.

_“Because, my dear Ricky, I suspect that under that cynical shell, you are at heart a sentimentalist.”_

To a beautiful woman, broken by the passage of time and regrets for paths not taken. _“You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss.”_

To that same, cynical nightclub owner doing his best, lamenting the return of a lost love with the one line she’d heard before, but it had never made her want to cry before. _“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the worlds, she walks into mine.”_

Lovers, content to know nothing of each other but that they were in love once. _“Here’s looking at you kid.”_

Then war, startling in its abrupt ability to tear people apart, now and always. _“With the whole world crumbling, we pick this time to fall in love.”_

Rick. Left standing alone on a platform, reading a note that said goodbye in ink that ran down the page with the rain. The word _never_ on it cut a new meaning now as he threw it in the dirt for the train to take him away from the memory of the woman who’d left him behind.

_“It’s funny about you, your voice hasn’t changed. I can still hear it. ‘Richard, dear, I’ll go with you anyplace. We’ll get on a train together and never stop.’”_

Nile learned just then that lies hurt even in black and white.

_“How long was it we had, honey?”_

_“I didn’t count the days.”_

_“Yeah? Well, I did. Every one of them. Mostly I remember the last one. The Wow Finish. A guy standing on a station platform in the rain with a comical look on his face because his insides had been kicked out.”_

But the husband. Brave. Upright. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Had lived to stand between the lovers, had risen again to fight even when maybe he shouldn’t have. _“If I didn’t give you the names in a concentration camp, where you had more persuasive methods at your disposal, I certainly won’t give them to you now. But what if you track down these men and kill them? What if you murdered all of us? From every corner of Europe, hundreds, thousands would rise to take our places. Even Nazis can’t kill that fast.”_

And okay, maybe Nile could see why the lady picked him over Rick. Maybe. Except…

_“Isn’t it strange that you always find yourself fighting on the side of an underdog?”_

Songs then, loud and drunk as she was now, the whole bottle gone and another open.

“What’re they singing?” she asked Booker, pretending her words weren’t slurring.

“‘Die Wacht am Rhein’. A German patriotic anthem.”

But the husband interrupted, walked straight up to the band and said, “Play ‘La Marseillaise!’” and the French drowned out the German.

Booker was humming along, out of key, drunk as she was, and not at all a good singer. It was nice. Made her smile. She wished she knew the song so she could sing along to, then decided it didn’t matter and just sang whatever.

It was possible that the drink made the moment warmer, or maybe she just was. Warmer. Even as they closed down the cafe, and it felt like the hope of the movie was fading.

 _“I know how it is to be lonely,”_ said the husband with more forgiveness than Nile had ever seen. Especially when Rick was such a _dick_ about it, oh my god.

_“There is so much at stake and all you can think of is your own feelings. One woman hurts you and you take it out on the rest of the world!”_

Yep. Pretty much any man Nile had ever met. And then she pulled a gun on Rick - the orchestra playing a dramatic _dundundun!_ and everything! It made Nile giggle and snort and Booker, drunk as she was, slapped vaguely in her direction and tried to shush her through his own laughter.

But then they settled as the movie and the rain and the evening cast its spell again.

_“Go ahead and shoot. You’d be doing me a favor.”_

_“I was lonely, I had nothing, not even hope.”_

Yeah. Nile kinda knew what that was like.

_“I wonder if you know that you are trying to escape from yourself. You will never succeed.”_

Great. Now, Nile wanted to cry into her wine. She drank more instead, and shoved at Booker just cuz he was there. He rocked away with it, then came back, but she was honestly kinda surprised he didn’t fall over. But no, Rick was gonna turn on them, no that’s not how the movie could go.

“Sh,” Booker bade, still laughing.

“No, this isn’t how happy movies go man!”

“What about me made you think that I would pick a happy movie?” he said.

That… might have been a good point.

He only let her suffer for a moment though, instead said, “Don’t worry, all’s well that ends well.”

_“We’ll always have Paris.”_

God. Damn it. Now she really was crying. And weirdly, when Rick and the police captain what’s-his-name wandered off into the fog with a _“This is the start of a beautiful friendship,”_ that she actually cried more?

Because it kinda felt like it was.

Especially since this was, by far, the most fun she’d ever had at a movie night.

It was probably the wine.

Or maybe it was the way Booker closed the laptop, listening carefully and answering her drunken rambles as he gathered the wine glasses and bottles and things, laughed with her for what might actually be the first time ever. With her, at her, whatever. It was just really nice. Especially, when he helped her to bed, helped her get under the covers and drink a whole giant glass of water. The way he tucked her in, brushed a warm hand over her braids and kissed her forehead while the drunkenness began to really, _really_ pull her under.

“Thanks, Book,” she tried to say as the words slipped out from under her, shifting like the desert sand.

“You’re welcome, Nile,” he said and left.

With just the rain on her window, and the dark blue of it, she felt her anxiety start to rise.

The water. The dark. Waiting.

Then, in the other room, he turned the volume back up on the tv, the quiet tones of a French predawn infomercial playing through the room, and she settled.

Briefly, she wondered if he did it just for her.

Booker woke with a start at Nile’s hand on his shoulder. He nearly took it off, so far into his dream of drowning that he panicked, came awake gasping.

“Sorry,” Nile said as he caught his breath. “I was gonna get some cereal for breakfast. You want me to pour you some?”

Running a hand down his face, Booker tried to wake himself up as a bit.

“Yes, sure, that would be fine,” he said and hauled himself up off the couch.

He went to the bathroom to shave and the necessaries, not looking too closely at his face for the wreck he would find there. He needed a shower soon. Perhaps after breakfast. He would at least need to change his clothes.

His bowl and spoon were waiting for him.

Someone else had prepared a meal for him, and again he was swamped with conflicted feelings of being so grateful she was here and already dreading her leaving again. But he was reasonably good about taking what he could get, usually.

He dug in.

“So,” Nile asked when he was halfway through his bowl, “What else is there to do in Le Havre?”

Snorting, he pushed the cereal around in the bowl to get a better bite.

“It’s not much of a tourist location. There’s a modern art museum, if you’re interested,” he said, not showing his disdain for it until she grimaced as well. “Yes, my thoughts exactly. Not for me I’m afraid. There are a few parks, but the weather doesn’t seem likely to hold out for them.”

“Well, what do you want to do today?”

Booker checked his watch.

“I have a phone call with Dr. Renouard at ten. The most recent survey team is going to make port today. They didn’t find anything, but I like to be here when they arrive in case there are any problems with the port authorities.”

“Right, because you own the company,” said Nile.

Booker nodded.

“So… can we go watch?”

“Watch what?” asked Booker.

“The vessel coming in.”

Ah. Booker thought it over. None of the research team had ever actually met him. Or seen his face. As far as they were concerned, he was just a voice on the phone, the orders in an email, the name on a check. It should be possible, he supposed.

Nile must have taken his thinking as hesitance, because she continued.

“It’s just I always wanted to be an engineer. I was going to study it on the GI Bill after I got out, but I suppose that’s probably not going to happen.”

Booker remembered what it was like to have your dreams for the future suddenly count for nothing, and said, “I don’t see why not. You will have plenty of time. With things as they are, it will be good for the team to have someone else able to navigate today’s technologies.”

“The others don’t seem too badly off.”

“Oh no, they put on a good show of it, but there is always more to learn. By now, we all have several degrees in a variety of subjects. Better too much knowledge than too little. I’m sure if you told them, the others would be happy to even enroll with you, providing the university in question didn’t mind its student’s having a more… flexible schedule.”

He didn’t bother to recommend someone take up cyber security and software design in his absence; he was sure they had already considered it.

They had until Copley died before it would really matter anyways.

“I guess,” Nile said, thoughtfully.

Booker drained the milk from his empty bowl, and stood to put it in the sink.

“I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to go watch the docking and unloading at least. Though, I doubt it will be as exciting as you are hoping it will be.”

Smiling wryly at him, Nile asked in the same tone as the night before, “Do we have anything else to do?”

He supposed she still had a point.

“Nothing pressing.”

Okay, so, Nile had seen docks before, but never any like this. Dr. Renouard, a French woman with steel hair and sharp eyes, had agreed to skype rather than call, so Nile had already seen her. She was waiting for them in a pristine white lab coat and entry passes at the actual guard station when they’d rolled up on Booker’s sputtering motorbike. She’d raised an eyebrow at their method of transit, but Nile ignored it. She was pretty used to unimpressed looks from white people with perfect postures and too bright teeth.

Nile didn’t let it show on her face.

Turning to Booker, Dr. Renouard offered him a slim hand to shake.

“ _Monsieur Van Beek, bienvenue, je suis ravi de vous rencontrer enfin. Si vous me suivez de cett-_ ”

Booker interrupted the research lead as he dropped her hand, “Merci, thank you. In English, if you don’t mind.”

The woman sniffed, and didn’t need to look at Nile to for her to know she was sniffing at her.

Whatever.

“Of course.” Her English was heavily accented, but understandable, “This way please.”

She led them through the docks, into the giant warehouse, telling them all kinds of statistics Nile had already heard Booker explain better, so she kept her hand in her pockets and her mouth shut.

The ship, though. The ship was something else.

She leaned over to Booker, and asked “How much did all of this _cost_?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Then the dock crane lifted what looked like something straight out of _A Space Odyssey_ off the ship and brought it down.

“Impressive, yes?” Dr. Renouard said, “It’s the Triton 36,000/2 with the Hadal Exploration System equipped for depth up to el-”

“Eleven thousand meters, I know,” Nile cut her off. Booker had given her the schematics and believe it or not, she did actually know how to read, even if she didn’t speak French.

It didn’t matter though, because Nile was immediately too distracted to listen to the woman anymore. She was much more interested in going over to talk to the people lowering it and doing checks. Then the rest of the crew, the people who’d actually been down there, the scientists supervising the transfer of the samples they’d collected, the sailors, the captain and his first mate, well, everyone.

By the time she’d come up for air, there was still a lot to do in getting the equipment stored away, but the sun was setting. She found Booker leaning on the wall beside the door they’d come in from, flask in one hand and a paperback book she’d seen stuffed in his back pocket in the other, and trotted over to him.

He closed the book with a snap when she came over, slipping away the flask much more subtly.

“You finished?” he asked.

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

Booker just shrugged and rolled off the wall and out the door.

“You enjoyed it?” he asked as they walked back to where the bike was still sitting.

“Yeah, it was cool, “ she said, which might have been an understatement, but she could kind of tell that Booker wasn’t actually interested in how the work he facilitated was done, just in that it did get done. Just because Nile was fascinated didn’t mean that Booker had to be.

Besides, she could kind of tell that his mood had darkened again. When he handed her his helmet he’d insisted she borrow that morning, the smile he’d worn then was absent now.

As they rode back through the drizzling rain, she hid her face in his jacketed back to hide from the stinging water that kind of made it hard to breathe for reasons she didn’t kid herself were entirely physical, and tried to think of what to do. She’d enjoyed the afternoon, but maybe Booker hadn’t. Maybe Booker had watched the whole affair and saw nothing but another failure.

“We should go out tonight,” she said when they got back to their rooms.

“Out?” Booker asked with a vague huff that might have been a laugh.

“Yeah, man. There must be a bar or somewhere around here to get a drink that isn’t this shithole,” she said, gesturing around the depressing flat.

“Hey,” he protested mildly, but she just raised an eyebrow on him.

The actual laugh she’d provoked left her feeling victorious.

“I’m serious though. How much longer did you plan to stay here for anyways?”

“Not passed tomorrow,” he admitted.

“See? Come on. One last night in Le Havre before we hit the road.”

She was at least ninety percent sure he would turn her down. So far, he’d been humoring her. Not that the others didn’t also humor her, but nights out seemed to be kind of a not-gonna-happen sort of thing. She got it, seriously. Lots of cameras, lots of people wanting to use them to record their own lives, but that might catch them in the background and blow them because Copley couldn’t be expected to catch everything.

“We?” Booker asked.

“What?”

“You said we.”

And oh, yeah, she did.

She didn’t want to tell him, really, that she was-

Happy. Well, happier. Having fun.

So fuck whatever the other’s thought. They had forever, they’d get over it eventually. She wasn’t ready to leave yet.

“Yeah, why? You gonna kick me out?” she asked, knowing it sounded ridiculous and doing nothing to hide it.

Booker snorted.

“No,” he said as he slipped off his soaking beanie and ruffled his own sopping hair. “I suppose one night would be fine if you can keep yourself from creating too much chaos.”

“Dude. I’m not Andy.”

Another laugh, not even twisted by the thought of absent friends.

“Fair enough.”

“ _Don’t stop believing! Hold on to that feeling_!”

The bar was like a million anywhere in the world. Rickety chairs, a counter full of regulars, sports muted in front of them, and a few people who were a little too drunk for the Tuesday evening.

Booker only might have been in that group, but Nile most certainly was.

She was up on the tiny stage in the corner, belting out a Journey song with a couple from Amsterdam they'd met only hours before. Booker had firmly declined joining them on the stage, but it was good that she had made friends. In fact, Booker got the feeling that today marked the first time since she had become immortal that she’d spoken to people outside of the others and those that they were either killing or killing for with no other intentions in mind.

That wasn’t good. Andy had once been rather social, certainly not the type to brood in the corner as she was wont now, but Nicky and Joe never really needed anyone other than each other to pass the ages. Booker, well, he’d been a swindler in his time. People were something he was good at, but the constant fear of discovery wasn’t something easily put aside. He was too cautious.

 _Too cowardly_ , the more vicious part of his brain whispered to him. He shut it up with another drink.

Still. It was good. It was clear that Nile still needed people, needed to socialize.

Here, she shined.

It would be a bit of an adjustment for the others. Booker wasn’t worried, he could easily erase all evidence of this evening. It would only take a few hours or so. But he recognized that the others would be hesitant.

He was sure Copley was just as good or even better than him, but he doubted it would be so easy to trust an outsider with their security, especially when it turned out they couldn’t even trust their brother.

_“You pathetic piece of shit!”_

He waved over the barman for another drink.

In any case, he thought as he burned down another, it would be good, having someone who could make friends so quickly, could put people at ease and get them to share information. A few languages under her belt, and Nile would be an important asset. He could just see it.

And then quickly buried that thought. It didn’t get to matter to him how she’d fit, not for another century.

Instead, he pulled out his phone and subtly filmed Nile belting out the last chorus, smirking as he caught the voice crack she was too drunk to even try and hide. That one would stay on his secure drive for at least a hundred years. One never knew when one needed blackmail materials on a friend. Or fellow immortal. He wasn’t sure they’d ever be friends.

Not now anyways.

Still.

He put his phone away as soon as the song ended, slipping it into his back pocket and going back to his drink before she could notice.

“Hey, Book,” she said, louder than she needed to, right in his ear as she draped herself over his shoulder. He didn’t mind much.

“Hey, yourself,” he replied.

The barman caught his eye, looked at Nile and shook his head. Booker nodded back. Nile was definitely cut off. He probably should be too, considering, but he had more practice hiding it.

“You should go sing!”

Booker wouldn’t be caught dead.

“I think I’ll leave the crooning to you and your new friends,” he said instead.

“Oh, hey, they’re really cool. You should come sit with us!”

Booker really, really didn’t want to. He was quite comfortable, firstly, but also it was dangerous, what Nile was doing.

They used to. Used to settle for a time, blend with the local populous and set down roots for a few years at a time. Would settle in with the people, army, cause they were fighting for and revel a bit in pretending to be real people rather than this half-reality in which they had been consigned, there, but never to stay, having to be intentionally invisible in a world where every moment was recorded and cataloged.

The last hundred years had been harder than the one before that for the others. For Booker, there was a somewhat prophetic irony in that as soon as he was stable enough to desire company of any kind after losing everything, such connections became dangerous.

Even when they didn’t stay anywhere for long anymore, talking at length with anyone was dangerous.

But, “Come on,” she wheedled. “It’s only one night! What’s the harm?”

She was so much braver than he was.

He downed his drink and left the glass on the counter as he let her drag him across the startlingly crowded bar.

“I told them we’re grad students studying oceanography or something. You don’t speak Dutch, do you?”

“Yes,” Booker said, because of course he did.

“Oh. Well, pretend you don’t.”

Booker snorted and wished he’d brought another drink. The odds of waving down a server were not looking promising as a group of twenty coeds was filtering through the door.

Too many people. Booker leaned over and whispered to Nile, “We should leave soon.”

When her eyes flicked back to meet his, they were startlingly, reassuringly sober. Serious, as she glanced at the large group full of camera phones and at least a dozen social media addicts, but valiant as she looked back.

“One more song,” she said.

He tried, for just that instant, to remember what it was like to be so unafraid, and found no memories came to mind. If he ever had been, it had been buried with a life too long and full of regrets.

He _really_ should have brought another drink.

But he wanted to. Wanted to remember. And sure, it would mean many more hours of tracking down the pictures of this night from all over the world, but maybe it would be worth it to let her stay unafraid for a while longer.

“One,” he agreed.

Her victorious grin was infectious as she continued to drag him over to where her new friends were waving.

They stayed for their other song. He chatted in English with the Dutchman while Nile laughed loudly with his wife as they finished their drinks and waited for their turn to get back on stage. When the others went to belt out a song Booker had never heard, but apparently half the bar knew all the words to, he filmed for all of them.

(Well, for him and Nile. He used the opportunity to erase the night from the others’ phone and didn’t feel bad in the least about it. Their safety was worth more than these strangers’ memories. Besides. Less work for later.)

When they were done, Nile accepted hugs from the strangers and Booker handshakes, and they headed back out into the cold to stumble the five blocks home.

It was the nicest night Booker could remember in a long time. Nile was practically skipping from the buzz, even if the five flights of stairs up left her winded.

He was surprised though when instead of heading to her room right away to pass out, she fell face first onto the couch.

“We should watch Casablanca again. It was nice and chill,” she said, scooching along the couch to make room for him, but Booker had work to do.

“I need my laptop,” he said, feeling the weariness of the upcoming evening settle in. “But if you think you can find something on the television, you’re welcome to it.”

Nile reached around and found the remote on the floor behind her (Booker had no idea how it got there) and flipped on the television. She switched the channel until she found some English speaking broadcast on the BBC, and tucked her feet up under her.

Booker sat on the other end of the couch and got to work.

It was rather mind-numbing work, hunting down every mobile that had pinged as being within a hundred feet of the bar and burrowing into its storage system using software Booker himself had designed to piggy back in through their cell signals. There were fewer pictures of them than he had honestly been expecting, considering, something which was explained as he moved onto the bar’s in house security system and found the footage already erased.

He should have known Copley would be double checking his work. Part of him wanted to be bothered by the fact that he had been so easily replaced, but the other, quieter part was grateful. At the very least, two pairs of eyes were better than one, even if he knew they would be circling each other suspiciously until Booker outlasted the other man. Which he would. One way or another.

Beside him, Nile huffed and tossed a bit. Glancing over, he found her sound asleep.

The clock in the bottom corner of his old and battered laptop said it was two in the morning. They had a long day tomorrow, clearing out of here, and didn’t begrudge her getting the sleep where she could.

He put a blanket over her in case she woke up from the freezing ocean, and left the television on low so the silence of choking screams and pounding, scratching on iron wouldn’t be so jarring when she woke and put his laptop away. If she wanted the couch, fine. He would take the bed.

He didn’t imagine he would be sleeping long. He never did.

Nile woke with a start to her phone ringing. Looking around, she found Booker over by the kitchenette, moving around quietly, the sounds of the morning news playing across from her on the tv.

She promptly squinted her eyes against the golden sun beam that passed through the window straight into her face. Seemed the sun had finally come out.

Curling back instinctively into the couch cushion, she shook her head a bit trying to clear the cobwebs. The blanket over her left her pleasantly warm, calling her to fall back to sleep but for the ringing in her back pocket.

Groaning, she groped groggily for it, trying to blink the sleep from her eyes.

“Hello?” she asked when she was finally able to answer.

“Morning, sunshine,” came the teasing voice on the other end.

“Oh, hey, Joe,” Nile said, smiling until she saw the way Booker's head snapped around to her.

Right. Awkward. She went to stand and maybe take the call outside, but Booker’s face twisted into something unreadable, but he waved her off, taking up the trash bag he’d filled while she was still sleeping and slipped out the door with it.

Nile stared after him.

“-I’m not interrupting am I?” Joe asked, and Nile kind of thought he was, but didn’t say so.

“No, it’s fine. I was just asleep.”

“I thought you might be. It looks like you had fun last night. I didn’t know you were a Beyonce fan.”

Oh god.

“How did you even-why?” she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry.

“No, seriously, you’re very good,” he teased, the asshole. “The dancing was inspired.”

“Shut the fuck up, man,” she laughed. “How did you even find that?”

“Booker’s phone. Copley was nice enough to send it along, although Nicky is more of a Journey per-”

But Nile wasn’t really listening.

“You have Copley tapping Booker’s phone?” she asked, interrupting him.

She didn’t know why, but the thought really bothered her. It felt like an invasion of privacy. Like, she _got_ it. They didn’t trust him, but seriously. They’d exiled him. It just felt weird.

“Of course,” Joe said, like it was a given. “He watches all our phones.”

Nile knew he watched hers, in case of an SOS or something, but- “Booker’s not one of us.”

_You insisted._

She didn’t remind him, especially when she still, even here in Booker’s space, didn’t know how she felt about that, especially when he said, “Of course he is. Just because a price needs be paid doesn’t mean that we would risk his safety.”

Blinking, Nile looked around the rundown flat, at how empty it was, remembered the dark and damp and thought of Booker out here alone and wondered just what Joe considered ‘safety.’

“I’m sure he’s aware,” Joe said confidently, refusing to see it as odd. Maybe it wasn’t.

But, maybe it was.

“Yeah,” she said, the sarcasm leaking into her voice. “Sure man.”

There was a pause, then Nicky was on the phone.

“Nile?” he asked. “You okay?”

She thought about it, really thought. She was okay. The breakdown she’d felt looming was kind of more in the background now. Still there, but not so sharp and needling as it had been. She probably wasn’t great, exactly, but she wasn’t so close to the ledge now. Even if she was annoyed now, she wasn’t sure she was ready to give that stability up to be mad instead.

So, she took a deep breath, and let it go.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Nicky said.

“How’s Budapest?” she asked.

“The same,” he answered, which she supposed was fair as she tried hard not to think too hard about how he could have meant the same as a few days ago or a few centuries ago. “And Normandy?”

“Rainy,” Nile replied. “The beach is nice though, I guess.”

“Hm,” Nicky sounded entirely unconvinced.

“I don’t think we’re going to stay here long,” Nile said.

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, I recommend southward. The weather gets better…”

But Nile wasn’t listening anymore because Booker came back in. She went to get up and go… somewhere. Just so he didn’t have to hear her talk to the others when he couldn’t, but he waved her off. Had her stay there and, in her very educated opinion, tried his best to look like he wasn’t listening as he gathered the papers from the oceanography team and put them all in a plain black backpack.

“Nile?” Nicky called her attention back.

“Sorry, no, yeah, south sounds nice. Any suggestions?” Nile said, looking away and down.

“Not unless you want to make it all the way to Italia?” he asked

“Ha, no. Well, maybe. I don’t know yet.”

“Let us know when you do? Save us the trouble of tracking you down.”

Again, Nile wasn’t really listening. Her attention kept getting grabbed by the way Booker was quietly moving around the room, gathering things, making it look at once like they’d never been here at all.

“Yeah, that sounds good, Nicky. I’ll, uh, call you back okay? I’ve got to go,” she said vaguely.

“Of course,” he said, but didn’t hang up. Instead, continued, “But Nile?”

“Yeah?”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment, so long that she thought maybe she lost him or the call had dropped or something. She went to speak, to say something just in case when he continued.

“Tell Booker we said hello. And to take care of himself.”

She looked over at Booker, still not looking at her, and said, “Sure, Nicky. Talk to you soon,” and hung up before he could reply.

She would do no such thing. Exile or not, deserved or not, that was clearly a wound that didn’t need salt rubbed in it. If Nicky wanted to tell Booker that, he could do it his damn self.

“So,” she began. “Where are we going now?”

Booker’s eyes were heavy as they held her own like anchors.

 _Go back._ they said. _Why are you here?_

She didn’t answer them though, waited instead.

“Up to you, I suppose,” Booker answered. “I need to stop by Paris at some point.”

“You have a safe house there?” Nile asked, getting to her feet.

Folding the blanket she’d slept under, she listened as he said, “Of a sort.”

“Okay, that’s not mysterious or anything,” she teased and put down the blanket.

He tossed her, already packed, go-bag to her as she came over, and just like that, it was like they were never there.

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

They took their time leaving Le Havre. The sun was shining, finally, and the boardwalk by the beach full of life and people. The city felt alive enough to linger. They took some time to absorb it as best they could. Booker had walked Nile through buying a hat and sunglasses that would obscure her from most casual photographs, but while they were always careful now, one couldn’t spend their lives walking on eggshells.

So, to the beach they went. It was late in the morning by the time Nile had stirred after so late a night, and the shops were open, visitors flocking to the day. There was a skatepark along the way, the snappings and grindings of the boards and wheels mingling in the air with the laughs of the teenagers on the beach below and the cries of the gulls above.

They walked along the edge, cut over to the shops on the other side and got ice cream even though it was still fairly chilly. It was delicious anyways.

And gone too soon.

“We’ll need to hit the road soon,” Booker said as he and Nile leaned on a railing looking out over the sea.

Nile nodded, but didn’t look away from the rolling waves.

“She’s out there somewhere.”

That, at least, Booker understood. It was a nightmare they shared.

“She is. And we will find her.”

“Yeah,” Nile trailed off.

Booker waited to see if she would continue, but she didn’t. He supposed she didn’t need to, as he understood anyways. There was not much to say.

They could do nothing but hope.

“Come on,” Booker said. He didn’t pat her shoulder, instead tossed the napkin from his cone in the nearby trash can. “Let’s get going.”

“We in a rush?” Nile asked, even as she straightened to follow.

Looking up at the sky, Booker could smell it on the air and feel it in his too old bones.

“The rain will come again soon.”

It always does.

“Besides,” he continued, not giving word to the thought. “We still need to find you a helmet. Would be a shame to have to outrun the police.”

“Yeah, that sounds like it might be a bit of a downer.”

She said it so flatly that it made Booker laugh out loud.

They left the little city of Le Havre to its gulls and skaters and to the waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends old and new!
> 
> This is my first Old Guard fic. I have about three more chapters left planned, so I would love to hear what you think so far. Huge shout out to my sister and best beta on the planet LostInThePines for the endless encouragement and help. If you are here looking for Count Your Blessings, I'm sorry. This idea would not leave me alone. I do have the first ten or so pages of the next chapter done, but I simply couldn't write any more until I got this idea down. Worry not, it has not been forgotten.
> 
> Kudos and comments are always greatly appreciated <3
> 
> -Moth


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